The information technology sales channel is changing, and Cisco Systems Inc. is adapting to a new world where sometimes the best approach is to bring in partners who don’t sell anything at all.

The company’s Accelerating Cisco Ecosystem Sales program, or ACES, brings facilitators to the table with resellers to engage in dialogue over how to leverage Cisco’s product line. These meetings are backed up with events and other opportunities to engage with partners throughout the ecosystem and open new customer sales opportunities.

“It’s a fully built framework for better engaging multiple partners. Now we’re … getting into new conversations that unlock real value,” said Denny Trevett (pictured), vice president of ecosystem acceleration, Global Partner Organization, at Cisco Systems.

Trevett stopped by the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona, Spain, and spoke with co-hosts John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu). They discussed examples of where the partner program yielded sales results and other events designed to build stronger ecosystem relationships. (* Disclosure below.)

Xentaurs helps close a deal

One example where this partnership approach yielded results involves Xentaurs, a digital systems integrator. Cisco partnered with Xentaurs to help close a potential $1 million deal with a client that involved Cisco Tetration Analytics, real-time data center analytics.

“They don’t resell anything, but they’re a key influencer to connect the multiple different buying centers,” Trevett explained. “They’re helping Cisco and our resellers generate opportunities we wouldn’t have gotten before.”

Borrowing a page from the popular “Shark Tank” television program, Cisco also introduced Partner Connections events. In these gatherings, independent software vendors have eight minutes to pitch their solutions in a room full of Cisco resellers. It’s another way that Cisco connects ecosystem partners with other potentially helpful resources.

“We can bring in four or five of these ecosystem partners in any one particular vertical or architecture and have them pitch to a room,” Trevett said. “All of these cool things that we do today could fit with a service provider or any other partner.”

There was a time when companies such as Cisco would issue press releases and pop champagne corks to celebrate joint integrations. “In the end, nobody monetized that,” Trevett said.

Today, Cisco engages in sales blitzes, lunch-and-learn meetings, and cold calling that involves key Cisco partners in the technology stack. “We built a sales blitz with a partner like LiveAction that plays with us in SD-WAN,” Trevett said. “As we build out these best practices, we build them in a way they can be scaled across any architecture, any partner or any solution.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Cisco Live Barcelona 2018. (* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco Systems nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE